WE NEED YOUR VOTE TO WIN £50,000 OF NATIONAL LOTTERY FUNDING

2nd April 2019

Here at Blackburn Festival of Light we are really excited as we have been given the opportunity to secure £50,000 of National Lottery funding as part of this year’s People’s Projects. We are one of five groups in ITV Granada region in the running for a share of a life changing pot of £3 million up for grabs across the UK.

As you know we are a grassroots organisation run by a group of passionate artists, who are  really committed to making positive change in the town through our workshops and the Festival of Light itself. We employ local artists and performers, and use our activity to promote community interaction and integration; to up-skill volunteers and participants, build confidence and raise aspirations.  Our work helps change the way Blackburn is seen from the outside, as well as helping the people who live here feel a sense of pride of place, belonging and community. Blackburn is changing for the better- helped by many hands working together in many ways- and we really want to do their bit.

Let It Shine - The People's Parade

Imagine a year long project  which will encompass a free to access summer workshop programme and a new celebratory summer parade, whilst continuing to build on the success of the winter event. Think colour, costume, drumming and dance- think carnival, giant puppets, bright flags and happy faces! Oh and hopefully sunshine!

The funding would enable us to extend our community outreach programme to run year round. We would be able to keep our fantastic community Samba band growing and developing for performance in the parades. We will also have more dance movement sessions giving the parades more of a carnival feel, providing a longer bonding experience as a community beforehand. It would allow us to offer free to access workshops for anyone from the local community,  making lanterns in the winter, and big carnival structures/puppets, circus skills and costumes in summer.

This campaign is also an exciting opportunity to raise awareness and support for our work and, with your help, to secure further much-needed funding, but we need you to get behind us! If successful, this will help us to make an even bigger difference to our local community. Projects and events like this help to create positive feelings and energy in the town, and a sense of pride of place, belonging and community, and we think the people of Blackburn deserve to have exciting opportunities like this and are really hoping we will win.

How to vote

On Thursday 4th April, Blackburn Festival of Light will be on the TV to showcase our project, LET IT SHINE - The People’s Parade, this will be on Granada at 6pm. To be in with a chance of claiming the top prize, we are asking people to support our bid by visiting the People’s Projects website to vote. Voting opens at 9am on Monday 1st  April at https://www.thepeoplesprojects.org.uk/projects/view/let-it-shine-the-peoples-parade

Voting closes at noon on Monday 15 April 2019. People can vote once per region and will need a telephone number or email address to vote.

To support the LET IT SHINE -The People’s Parade project and for Ts & Cs please visit https://www.thepeoplesprojects.org.uk/projects/view/let-it-shine-the-peoples-parade